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Dogs that become demonic around the food dish, snarly on the sofa or grouchy when chewing on a bone are all-too-common.Finally, here s a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to help you recognize, evaluate and treat resource guarding in pet dogs.From the author of The Culture Clash, Fight, Dogs Are From Neptune and Oh Behave! this book may just save your sanity and your relationship with your pet pooch.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

A totally comprehensive and practical treatment of a common and very serious behavior problem,. Jean Donaldson translates complex animal learning theory into usable procedures without sacrificing scientific accuracy. Anyone who works with dogs will benefit from reading Mine --Suzanna Hetts, PhD, author of Pet Behavior Protocols

Once I started reading it, it quickly became apparent that this book should be mandatory reading material for virtually every dog owner. Brenda s description of the canine language and the contexts in which they occur is very well documented. --Ali Brown, author of Scaredy Dog! Understanding & Rehabilitating Your Reactive Dog

About the Author

Author Jean Donaldson has over 30 years experience in dog behavior and training. As the Founder and Director of the San Francisco SPCA Academy for Dog Trainers, Jean leads a new generation of dog trainers to better understanding of the research and science of canine behavior. Jean s award winning book, The Culture Clash, is a pivotal book in the dog trainer s library because it called into question many sacred assumptions about the origins of behavior and behavior problems. Jean lives in the San Francisco area with her Chow Chow, Buffy.

More About the Author

Author Jean Donaldson has over 30 years experience in dog behavior and training and is the Founder and Director of the San Francisco SPCA Academy for Dog Trainers. Jean's award winning books include The Culture Clash and Oh Behave! She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her Chow, Buffy. Visit www.jeandonaldson.com to keep up to date with Jean and her work.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

I haven't finished this book yet, and I probably won't, because it doesn't actually address the problem my dog has. This book is only aimed at improving resource guarding against humans. My dog guards from other dogs. Oh well...

Our puppy was a serious resource guarder from day 1. Initially we couldn't get near her when she had anything, but now we easily "trade," even when she has something she loves. This book describes a nonconfrontational protocol for your dog to respect you and see you as the giver of good things, not as a threat.

I'll agree that the writing style was unnecessarily dry and technical at points, but I would still give this book an enthusiastic five star rating on the basis of its content, ignoring the style. My dog has had very mild dog/dog resource-guarding problems since she was about eight months old. She'd never snap or actively chase a dog off, but she would hunker down over her items and growl like a chainsaw until the other dog went away. Around a month ago, as she neared three years of age, it suddenly intensified. She started charging toward her brother, who became very cautious in her presence.

Last week, I watched her as she ate her breakfast. She took not a single bite for thirty minutes because she was too busy death-glaring at her brother, whom she could see from the corner of her crate window. Her brother was not interested in her food or her crate; he wasn't even facing in her direction. But she couldn't take her eyes off him long enough to eat. It just about broke my heart to see her in that much distress. I bought Mine! and read it in a single sitting, then reread it a day later to make sure I'd grasped the specifics (as an added note, I've worked in the pet industry for years and have trained dogs professionally, so most of this was not new material for me). I know that results mid-session after the dog has figured out the game rarely correlate to a "cold trial" at a later point, but it was so incredibly encouraging to see my girl calmly allowing my boy to approach her food bowl, sniff it and back away. As an added bonus, it seems to be really improving their relationship. Their play has always been safe and free of guarding incidents, but there was a pushy tension in it before that has almost disappeared since we started the training described in this book.Read more ›

I was suggested this book by some friends on a dog behavior forum. It's not that my dog has human resource guarding, but he had some serious dog vs dog resource guarding. Despite the difference, I was able to take a lot of the suggestions and systems in the book and begin to apply them to him while working with other dogs. So far things are looking a lot better and hopefully we'll be enjoying the company of other dogs at the same time we enjoy a good chewy!

I highly recommend tihs book to help an owner understand why their dog may protect something. It's a wonderful tool and eye opener

Resource guarding, dogs growling or biting when food, toys, specific locations, etc. are approached is an extremely common problem. Jean explains in easy to understand terms how to modify this problem behavior. A must have for any professional trainer or any owner of a dog that resource guards.

This book is good if you have dogs that guard resources (toys, food, etc) from you or another person, but didn't help me with what I needed it for- our dog guards resources from our other dogs, but doesn't guard at all from us. Still, a very good book.

The book arrived faster than expected and in perfect shape. The information in the book has been just what we needed for the puppy we adopted. She had some of the worst resource guarding ever. In days you could a big improvement. She went from snapping and snarling at everyone over her food to being able to chew on a kong next to my other dog.

This is a book for a dog trainer or serious and dedicated dog owner who is facing guarding resource problems (getting all growly, bitey over food, people, furniture, etc.) This book isn't for the casual pet owner because it's far too technical and dry for a brand new pet owner but I'd recommend a copy for anyone who has done some obedience work and fosters, rescues, etc. because you really never know what you may face until you get the dog inside your home.

The author lists step-by-step techniques and guidance to help a dog become a safe(r) member of the family and society and addresses only guarding problems and body handling issues. One of the desensitization programs has 40+ steps and dogs can backslide (there are tips for this) if you go too fast, so this is no quick fix people. But it's a great alternative to euthanasia or negative /harsh training methods.

Personally, though I find the steps and the information in the book extremely helpful I didn't care for the overly technical jargon the author uses. It made the book deadly dull to read from cover to cover (which I did) but I will keep it and I'm sure I will find it incredibly helpful when faced with a dog exhibiting these issues but then I can just skip over to the chapter helpful to me at the time.

I really like this author's perspective. She says that people expect dogs to live their lives without ever losing their temper and says that's like expecting a person to go through life never getting angry and raising their voice. Well, I would've been put down at 13 if that were the case ;)

I also appreciated the chapter on preventing these situations in the first place by socializing, touching and grooming a puppy.Read more ›